Key Terms

Lesson Outline

Remind students of what they learned in previous lessons that
will be pertinent to this lesson and/or have them begin to think
about the words and ideas of this lesson:

Ask students to recall what probability is.

Ask the class if they know what the Stock Market is or ask if
any students own stock. Briefly discuss the Stock Market.

Objectives

Let the students know what they will be doing and learning today.

Lead a discussion on what the stock market is and why
someone would risk their money to purchase stock. Discuss this in
terms of probability.

Ask such questions as, "Why would someone choose to purchase
stock from one company rather than another?" This will lead into a
discussion of expected value.

Teacher Input

Lead a class discussion using the Expected Value discussion that will formalize and develop the concepts introduced by the Stock Exchange activity.

Guided Practice

Describe the Stock Exchange activity which introduces the idea of varying payoffs, bringing probability and payoffs together and developing the
concept of expected value.

Independent Practice

Have groups of students experiment with the activity to generate discussion ideas to use during the closing discussion.

Closure

Lead a class discussion using the Expected Value discussion that will formalize and develop the concepts introduced by the Stock Exchange activity.

Alternate Outlines

This lesson can be rearranged in several ways.

Introduce the discussion before having students work with the
Stock Exchange activity.

Or use the material in the discussion to prepare a "live" discussion.

Suggested Follow-up

After this discussion and activity, the students will have learned about expected value and payoff.
At this point, if students still have questions about probability, choose some activities and discussions
from earlier lessons that may have been omitted and use them to reinforce what students already know.
If needed, refer to the Crazy Choices Game and draw
comparisons with the Stock Exchange activity for students.